Plastic bags are popular for storing food and other items. Zippered plastic bags that can be securely closed and reopened are particularly popular due to their perceived ability to maintain freshness of the food stored in the bags and/or to minimize or eliminate leakage into and out of the bag. These bags are used one at a time by consumers. These bags are also used by businesses to package items that are then sold to consumers. For example, nuts, candy, snacks, ingredients, salt, cheese, and other food and non-food products are packed in these bags by form, fill and seal machines.
Slider bags have become popular with customers for a variety of reasons, including difficulty in opening and closing a zippered bag without a slider. Product manufacturers have not, however, used zippers with sliders in their form, fill and seal machines for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include the difficulty in having a reliable assembly of sliders to zipper at form, fill and seal manufacturing rates, supplying zipper with sliders that are not prone to machine jamming and excessive downtime, and installing sliders in tight and constraining areas in form, fill and seal machine footprints.
Accordingly, a need exists to address the above-noted problems by supplying zippers in a convenient configuration and having methods of easily placing sliders onto zippers.